Her online programs help people manage their health

By Michael Souza PBN Staff Writer

Over the last 10 years health-insurance companies have stressed the need for preventative health care and wellness programs. Well ahead of the curve in establishing these programs and evaluating their effectiveness are Janice M. Prochaska and her company, Pro-Change Behavior Systems Inc. of South Kingstown.

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BUSINESS WOMEN

Her online programs help people manage their health

BEST BEHAVIOR: Janice M. Prochaska, Pro-Change Behavior System Inc. president and CEO, founded the company in the late 1990s and now oversees a staff of 20 people, many of whom are URI psychology department graduates.

Over the last 10 years health-insurance companies have stressed the need for preventative health care and wellness programs. Well ahead of the curve in establishing these programs and evaluating their effectiveness are Janice M. Prochaska and her company, Pro-Change Behavior Systems Inc. of South Kingstown.

Since 1997, Prochaska has been on the cutting edge of changing people’s behavior to help improve their health and well-being.

Her goal is simple, to offer evidence-based, behavior-change solutions to health care problems. To do so, the company conducts scientific research to produce effective solutions. The company was founded by her husband, James O. Prochaska, who now serves as a consultant and is still the head of the cancer-prevention research center at the University of Rhode Island. Prochaska is president and CEO and the company is a certified woman’s business enterprise.

She holds an adjunct faculty position at URI, earned a master’s in social work from Wayne State University and a Ph.D. in social work administration and policy from Boston College. She has also published more than 100 papers on the transtheoretical model and behavior change and social work.

Pro-Change Behavior Systems Inc. began when it received funding in the late 1990s from Electronic Data Systems, an information technology equipment and services company headed by H. Ross Perot. The money was to help apply the “transtheoretical model,” a behavioral change-management program based on “stages of change” and processing feedback at each step. With Prochaska having completed her dissertation on the subject, the fit was perfect. “That helped us with gathering funding from the outside,” she said. Soon thereafter the company signed two contracts for health-behavior change for illnesses such as diabetes and weight.

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